


Everything, Everything

by monkiainen



Category: The A-Team (2010)
Genre: Electroconvulsive Therapy, Flying, Gen, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regret, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 01:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17715710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/pseuds/monkiainen
Summary: Murdock wants to be the Red Baron and not to be the Red Baron.





	Everything, Everything

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the prompt _Today Murdock is the Red Baron_ for smallfandomfest. I may or may have not watched _American Sniper_ prior writing this.

They say I'm crazy; a special kind of crazy that cannot be helped with medicine or shrinks or electric shocks or whatever treatment is the new black. I don't feel crazy, I don't. Just a bit… detached from the world, I think. Yes, that is probably the right word for what I'm feeling.

The world is so weird and acts in such a peculiar way that I'm starting to wonder whether I'm not the crazy one at all. Because the way the world is now does not make any sense to me, and yet those who claim to be the sane ones are the ones mastering the puppets. I don't know. I really don't.

When I was little I wanted to be like the Red Baron – I wanted to fly and fly and fly and be victorious. I got what I wanted, but perhaps the price I had to pay for my childhood dream was too big for me to handle. Yes, flying is what makes me feel alive, but everything else? It horrifies and nauseates me, and I can't believe the things I've had to do in the name of my own country. If that's what they call sane, then this whole world is crazy.

They told me I can't fly anymore because I'm a liability. I'm too unbalanced, too medicated; too everything and they locked me up. I look at all the birds flying freely outside my window and my heart breaks when I realise I can't follow them. My only joys are the old Peanuts comics someone has left to the canteen – I sit on my bed and imagine I'm manoeuvring my aircraft through the enemy lines, flying faster and faster and saving everyone from getting harmed. But that's not true, now is it? Because no matter how much you try, you can't save everyone and there is always someone innocent caught in the crossfire.

Children shouldn't have to suffer like that. And I shouldn't have to be the one to cause the suffering. 

They said me to fly here and there, and drop bombs along the way, because we were fighting a war against the terrorists and some big bad terrorist leader had his secret lair in the location X. Except he hadn't, oops, the intel was bad and you just killed a village full of innocent people but don't worry, it was not your fault. You just have to live with the knowledge every single day for the rest of your life. Lesson learned: never trust what a guy from CIA says.

I fly, but it's not the same again. I want to be the Red Baron, but without killing anyone. Can't I just fly, as far as the eye can see and never come back?

My mind is so cloudy these days that I don't know what is true and what is not. They say that the pills they are giving me are supposed to make me okay and alright and sane again, but it doesn't feel like that. They are only making me more delusional, and when I try to tell them that they only give me more pills and electric shocks. And they won't let me fly.

I don't know why, but for some reason a guy called Hannibal Smith shows up at the hospital and wants to take me with him. Apparently I'm the best pilot he's ever heard of, and they kind of need one now. Something to do with some bad guy called Tuco or Taco or something similar. I don't care what he says as long as I can fly again.

For a moment I forget all the bad things I've done in the name of my country when I'm airborne again. The ambulance helicopter is not the fastest or swiftest thing I've ever flown in my life, but it doesn't matter one bit. I can feel the freedom running through my veins, I'm the Red Baron again with my red plane and I'm going to be victorious. They can't catch me, never. I want to fly to the moon and back, and never land.

It's so good to be free again.

I like Hannibal and Face and B.A because they treat me like I'm their _equal_ instead of _the mad pilot they just saved from loony bin._ No one has treated me like that in a long time. Honestly speaking, no one has ever treated me as their equal. I was either too good in what I loved doing, or too insane for their tastes. But somehow… these three men don't think like that. Maybe because they are insane in their own way.

Hannibal has the craziest plans that always work out in the end, even though on paper they are completely incomprehensible. Face always has his crazy scams, and I don't know how he does what he does, because he always pulls through and charms the right girl or guy we need to make Hannibal's plan work. B.A. is crazy about his van, and I think he still hasn't forgiven me what happened to his van in Mexico. Oops. I solemnly swear I'm up to no good… I mean, I swear it was an accident. I didn't mean to break his van, I really didn't. Breaking his van on purpose would be same than telling me I can never fly again.

I have my new team, my friends, my family. I can fly, fly again, and be the Red Baron I always wanted to be without the whole killing part. It's good. It's okay. Everything is in its right place and I'm victorious. You can't catch me if you try because I'm the Red Baron and I'm unbeatable. Give a plane and I'll fly you everywhere you want to.

I don't need pills or therapy or anything else you shrinks want to offer me to mould me to someone I'm really not. I need this. I need my new family with me, because they keep me sane with their own insanity. Just trust me with this.


End file.
